


Heart's A Mess: Superheroes aren't made, they're broken

by Tori Crash (Torious_Crash)



Category: Iron Man (Comic), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Beta Wanted, F/F, Female Tony Stark, Female-Centric, Feminist Themes, Femslash, JARVIS might be sentient, Light Angst, Minor Christine Everhart/Toni Stark, Minor Toni Stark/OFC, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Past James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Toni Stark, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 22:04:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4116466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torious_Crash/pseuds/Tori%20Crash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Antonia Stark and Pepper Potts hate the way their lives have turned out, hate that they love each other but can't seem to come together, and hate that they've been doing the same crap for twenty years. But everything changes when Toni is kidnapped and brutalized, and both are forced to deal with their lives without the other.</p><p>*Rewrite of first iteration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart's A Mess: Superheroes aren't made, they're broken

**Author's Note:**

> Story context: This piece mostly follows the movies' plot line, with heavy influences from the marvel main universe. The major differences are that Toni was born female and is bisexual, Pepper's gay, Happy's a parental figure, Toni's parents were okay if somewhat absent, and I try really hard to make the science actually work. I'm a nerd, sorry.
> 
> This is, more or less, the first piece of fiction I've ever posted and I don't have a lot of experience, so constructive criticisms would be more than appreciated. I have somewhat of a language problem but I hope I've been able to compensate for that, if I haven't, please point out what I've done wrong. The piece is unfortunately unbeta'ed. Sorry.
> 
> Explicit warning for later chapters: This story will have a lot of little sex scenes, but I don't plan on making them explicit. Pepper and Toni's scenes will of course be much more intense, but I'll be writing an alternative R rated version for anyone who wants to skip the erotica.
> 
> Trigger warning for later chapter: Toni is violently sexually assaulted in Afghanistan. I do not graphically describe the assault but I describe everything leading up to it, her thoughts during, everything after it, flashbacks, and dealing with the PTSD. It might be triggering to some but I'll be putting markers at the beginning and end of the worst parts. My depiction will not be fetish/fantasy, will not be erotic, it's meant to be terrible but I believe it's important to show the very ugly terribleness of it. Again I'll give plenty of warning, it's not my intention to trigger anyone.
> 
> Thank you for reading.

The crap dice fly from Antonia Stark's hand, bouncing and rolling as they travel down the table. But despite the raven haired Angelina Jolie type woman standing beside her, her careless wasting away of her time and money, and the energy generated around her by her power and very presents, Toni is bored. Bored and disillusioned, the sensation of it sitting lodged in the back of her mind like a shard of glass, driving her insane, driving her to ever increasing need for stimulation.

She's felt like this, in one form or another, for the whole of her life, felt like something was wrong with the world, wrong with herself. Acutely, and at the moment, she feels the utter meaninglessness and emptiness of her life, filled as it is only with the designing of things that blow other things up. And liquor, she mustn't forget that her life is also filled with liquor.

Some might also point out that she fills her life with meaningless sex, but the women, and occasional men, are hardly worth noting as fillers. They're more like the substanceless whipping on her already meaningless dessert of a life. Like the fluffy non-substance standing in front of her now, they're mostly shallow, one dimensional representations of the human beings they're really supposed to be, and could never, ever, compare to the beautiful and intelligent Pepper Potts.

Lost so deeply in these thoughts, she barely registers the dice ricocheting off the table's wall, tumbling back toward her and coming to a stop a decameter or so from the edge.

"Sixie from Dixie!" the stickman calls, shaking her from her brooding. "Cold Dice!"

Toni's losing and doesn't really care how much, in fact, the more she loses the better. Winning would be just plain dull. She picks the dice up again, goes through the motions of pretending to warm them between her hands, while staring intensely into Ms B-List Jolie's lips and taking stock of the playmate for the evening.

Her hair is obviously died, her lips look injected, and her nose looks done. Actually Toni can't find a single thing about this woman that she finds particularly attractive, except, maybe, for the fact that it would make more than a few men jealous, annoyed, or angry that Antonia Stark was going to take this woman to bed and they weren't.

Really, that's the only appealing thing to her, and she was of course planning to make a show of taking her home. It pleased her to no end that something which gave her so little pleasure, could generate such jealousy in others, could make them hate and envy her.

Toni holds her hand up to Ms Fake's mouth, inviting her to blow on the dice before the throw. If she'd done the same thing to Pepper, her PA would've just stared at her blandly, like she'd asked the most ridiculous question in the world, or maybe, she'd quote Toni the odds of winning.

Pepper isn't anything like the C-lister. Her hair is the colour of rich oxygen starved flame, her eyes like brilliant plasma balls of ionized krypton, her lips the full and healthy set of a mature woman's, her darling freckles accentuating and begging her features to be kissed. And when Toni begins to smile charmingly, it's aimed at the indulgent, impatient, slightly mocking smirk she imagines would be on Pepper's glorious mouth.

She throws the dice down the craps table without looking away from the green eyes in her mind, but the fantasy she's trying to create for herself is broken when out of the corner of her eye, she spots Rhodey. Quickly, she acknowledges his approach but then turns away sharply to show her irritation at being disturbed. And almost, almost, tells him to go away and let her play with Pepper by herself.

Thankfully though, she's not that delusional yet. Maybe in another few decades she'll be paying people to pretend they're someone she actually likes, but for now, she tries to ground at least some part of her mind in reality.

"Oh, no!" Toni gives him her best mock sympathy look, "Did they rope you into this?"

"Nobody roped me into anything!" Rhodey shakes his head, "But they told me that if I presented you with an award, you'd be honoured."

"Of course I'd be honoured," she pauses, "deeply honoured. And it's you, that's great. So when do we do it?"

He holds the earth on a pedestal shaped award passively in front of them, "It's right here. Here you go."

As Toni takes the god awful tacky thing from his hands, she doesn't even want to try to not be irritated by his irate. "There it is. That was easy," she pauses as she holds it against her chest and makes butterfly eyes at him, "I'm so sorry hun'."

"Yeah, it's okay."

They turn away from one another, neither really wanting to play this long suffered game. They both would've just preferred it if Rhodey had walked up, called Toni a name, shoved the award at her, and stood there ruining each others time for about a minute or two. But her long ago lover, is too nice of a guy to do something like that. He'd absolutely tell her when she was acting like a bitch, but would never, ever, call her one, and she absolutely hates how forgiving he is toward her.

Thankfully though, he did have a few sensitive buttons she could occasionally jab to get back at him, and slowly, she begins to beam as the thought of one of those enters her mind.

Really, she'd never thought of whatever they'd been to one another as 'lovers', she'd thought of him more as, her statutory boyfriend. To Toni, this was a term of endearment but one that she knew better than to share with any other person besides Rhodey. It would hurt him greatly to know that others might hear this and think badly of him, but she would remind him of this endearment as often as possible, just to irritate the hell out of him.

At seeing the very familiar, joy-filled, lopsided smirk spread across her lips, he knows that she's thinking something horrible, and the thought of it transforms his already irritated scowl, into a soured grimace.

"Don't even start with me Toni," he warns.

"Rhodey," she says his name sweetly, mania filling her eyes, "my dear. Whatever are you talking about."

"Just stop. Okay?"

"Come on Rhodes," Toni looks over at, what is she at now, D-list, and smiles salaciously. "We can have a foursome. I'll take the Angelina Jolie look alike and you can have the equally lovely," she turns to smile at the red head who has also been hanging around, "lady in red."

"No."

"Alright then. You entertain miss Jolie." She looks back, hiding her disgust at the woman and her easily inflated ego. "I can assure you miss Jolie, he's quite good in bed. I broke'm in myself."

"All you had to do, was tell me that you didn't want the damn thing and have Stane accept it right away, instead of letting me stand there with egg on my face."

"Ya I know," Toni stares unfocused off to one side.

Rhodey fumes at her for a few more moments, "I'm leaving." He takes a step to go but quickly spins back to invade her space. "Tomorrow. Don't be late."

"Yep, you can count on me."

"I'm serious Toni!"

She watches him walk away and feels equally pleased and guilty for upsetting him. It's hard not to give into her desire to take digs at him, they've known each other for so long and so well that it's just so easy and so satisfying to pick on him. It's not that she blames him for the failure of their relationship, she knows that it's death was entirely her fault, it's just that she trusts him and she needed a release from her frustrations and she knew he'd just shrug it off and chalk it up to Toni being difficult.

But the moment he began walking away, the rush of endorphins gave way to feelings of isolation and the fear of losing the few people who could tolerate her. Her emotional state seemed to be getting worse every day, the things that had given her a few minutes of joy, were now lasting seconds, and the sexual attractions she felt toward people, were getting less intense. She can feel the world she'd lived in her entire life, dissolve slowly around her and she can't think of a way to stop it.

As he's swallowed up by the crowd, she decides that on the plane trip to Afghanistan, she's going to get him very drunk and very laid. And with that apology gift decided upon, she dismisses Not-Pepper from her mind, and absently hands her the award.

"Here you are gorgeous."

Happy falls into step behind her as they leave, he's her ever present rock. He's never stolen or embezzled from her, never tries to manipulate her, never judges her, and he's the only person who asks nothing of her, except of course a TV, good boos, and permission to troll the girls stunned in her wake. There are times, like tonight, that she wishes she could just take his hand for support, but the media would take the small familiarity and twist it into something terrible.

"Ms Stark!" a woman's voice calls after Toni as soon as they reach the car, "excuse me, Ms Stark!"

Happy turns to make an assessment of the woman and leans closer to whisper, "she's cute."

"Christine Everhart, Vanity Fair magazine," the woman continues as she tries to push her way past security. "Can I ask you a couple of questions?"

"You think she's alright?" Toni whispers back.

"An eight maybe."

"Why don't you give her a try bud."

He smiles, "out of my league boss-lady."

"Leagues are for bowling," she smiles back at Happy, making him grin. After a moment, she turns to address the reporter, "Hi."

"Hi," the woman replies.

Toni waits a few moments for her to ask something, but then shrugs when nothing's forthcoming. "Well, if you have no more questions."

Christine pushes forward, "You've been called the da Vinci of our time. What do you say to that?"

"I say, utterly ridiculous. I don't even paint my nails."

The reporter isn't fazed by Toni's attempted cuteness, "and what do you say to your other nicknames," she pauses, "like 'The Merchant of Death'?"

"That's not bad Ms Vanity Fair," Toni takes a breath to collect her thoughts. "Maybe it's an apt title. But we live in an imperfect world, filled with imperfect beings, bent on committing horrible acts of violence toward one another. But," she raises her hand to punctuate her thought, "if you can convince them to stop and step into a suicide booth. I guarantee you, I'll start make'n soylent green."

The reporter blinks for a moment, "did it take your PR people long to write that one up?"

"Naw, wrote it myself," the smile tugging at Toni's lips is a genuine one, "thought of it one night while getting ready for bed."

"I see."

"Well, you could see first hand, if you like."

"I'd like a straight answer."

Toni purses her lips, "You're pretty fun Ms Vanity Fair," then mulls over her new plan B for a moment. "I'll tell you what. I just left my dates for the evening, so how about you and I fly back to my place, where we can discus this over some milk and cookies?"

"Is that supposed to sound like a proposition Ms Stark."

Toni thinks that Pepper isn't going to think very much of her if she brings the reporter home; then makes her throw the woman out on the morning of her birthday. But if Pepper does think it a complete bitch thing to do, it might put a little more distance between them, and Toni feels in desperate need of distance. Every day was becoming increasingly harder for her to live with herself, every day was becoming harder to live both with, and without Pepper Pots.

"To hell with cookies then," Toni's whole demeanour shifts as she gives into the idea of going to bed with this attractive and obviously intelligent woman, "how about we fuck like bonobos and I answer any question you ask."

Christine crosses her arms, "will the answers come before or after the monkey thing?"

Everyone within earshot is shamelessly staring at them, but neither really cares, both are having fun with this little game, and Toni is almost completely sure that Ms Vanity Fair is serious.

"Scattered throughout," she answers.

Christine pauses to think about it for a moment. Antonia Stark is an attractive and striking woman, rich and well kept, and if the rumours were to be believed, very good in bed. And she would definitely get way more than the story she'd originally been after. It then occurs to her, that Stark is letting the moment stretch on for longer than most would.

The dark woman's calm and peaceful demeanour, as well as her sexual self-assurance doesn't waver in the least as she stares into her eyes. It's incredibly intoxicating and overwhelming and Christine finds herself looking shyly away from Toni's deep blue eyes. The other woman has won their little game, and insanely, ridiculously, she thinks that maybe, she's even won her heart for a few hours.

After a few more beats, Toni lifts her hand, offering it to the other woman, and asks in a way that makes Christine feel as if they've known each other for a lifetime, "coming mia bella?"

Happy, the security, and the lookers on, are all frozen out of the world created around the two women, and it feels completely natural to Christine to take the offered hand and let herself be carefully guided into the back seat of the Lincoln. She feels a tingle of energy as Toni quietly closes the door and practically flows around the car to take her own seat on the other side. To Christine, the moment is utterly drowning in Toni's energy, and somehow, and absurdly, perfect.

For Toni however, it's just another piece of her soul, evaporating away so that she could pretend to feel somewhere close to normal for a little while.


End file.
